How the coronavirus lockdown changed our spending habits

Helena Horesh, 59, has only one regret since entering lockdown — that she didn’t self-isolate with her hairdresser.

“I’m already beginning to look a bit like a scarecrow,” she said, “and for the first time in a long time, I might find out how grey I am. It could be shocking.”

Before lockdown, pasta, hand gel and toilet roll were the must-have items. Now hair dye has become the new gold dust. With millions of people being reluctantly reintroduced to their natural colour, hair dye supplies in online beauty stores have emptied.

Only a limited number of colours, such as “metallic silver grey”, are available at Superdrug.com and Boots’s website has sold out of almost all stock. There has also been a run on clippers.